Ball pitching devices have been used for a variety of purposes, including tennis and other racket sports, baseball, softball and so on. Uses with respect to tennis have included practice returning the balls that are propelled towards a tennis player. Ball pitching devices have also been used in baseball for batting practice, and have more recently been used in training wherein a user is to maintain visual contact with the ball. There are other uses for ball pitching devices, including catching practice and fielding practice, to name just a few.
There have recently been provided training programs and methods, including ball pitching devices and the like, which are said to enhance the performance of athletes, including ocular conditioning programs devised to subject an athlete to exaggerated conditions, or such conditions which athletes would seldom ever encounter during normal competitive environments. The theory behind such exaggerated training programs is that after being continually subjected to extreme conditions an athlete will be better prepared physically and mentally to perform under normal or less extreme competitive conditions.
For example, exaggerated conditioning training programs are commonly used in baseball where bat speed is crucial to successfully hitting the ball. Before stepping into a batter's box to face live pitching, the batter will swing two or three baseball bats, or swing a single bat having a weight or “doughnut” slid down around the barrel of the bat. When the batter steps into the batter's box to face a pitcher, the batter's muscles are conditioned to swing a heavier bat. Accordingly, when the batter swings a lighter bat, such as one without a practice donut and the like, the conditioned muscles and will usually propel the bat at greater speed. Typical batting practice or even the events occurring during a live baseball game where a variety of styles of pitches are thrown are other examples to a limited degree. More appropriate examples, however, may be batting cages where the speed of a ball is propelled at a user at selected initial speeds that the user is generally comfortable with and able to hit the balls. The speed is then routinely increased to a point, oftentimes in the extreme, where the user finds that hitting balls becomes difficult, or virtually impossible. At this point, the user will routinely slow down the ball speed to resume hitting and in many circumstances finds that hitting balls at the initial speeds or thereabouts has now become easier through the conditioning of previously trying to hit the balls at higher speeds.
In like manner, as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,408, such methods of using extreme measures in the ocular conditioning of ballplayers is said to enhance their efficacy in baseball hitting. As described, there is provided a method for providing ocular enhancement for training a player of a game in which an object is projected towards the player at a predetermined first velocity range to increase the ocular focus of the player, and in which the method must be performed in a single training session. Further, the method comprises the steps of first providing an apparatus for sequentially varying the velocity of the projected object and for projecting a plurality of objects towards a player one at a time, then enhancing the ocular focus of the player by sequentially varying the velocity of a projected object during a single training session, wherein the step of enhancing the ocular focus comprises a plurality of sequential steps, the sequential steps comprising determining the first range of velocity, projecting a first set of the plurality of objects towards a player within the first range of velocity, subsequently increasing the velocity at which a second set of the plurality of objects is projected towards the player to a second velocity range which is greater than the first velocity range to increase the player's ocular focus at the second range of velocity, and then subsequently decreasing the velocity at which a third set of the plurality of objects is projected towards the player at a third velocity range which is within the first velocity range. See also, for example, U.S. Published patent application Ser. Nos. 2003/0004016 and U.S. Ser. No. 2002/0111231.
These methods as described, however, are merely nothing more than a known rendition of what has been practiced on playgrounds and in batting cages for years, or even that which occurs routinely during any live ball game; that is, one attempts to hit a ball at a comfortable speed and is successful, then the person increases the ball speed to an extreme degree, oftentimes at speeds at which the ball cannot be hit by the person, followed next by the person lowering the ball speed once again to a comfortable hitting speed. As to the critical limitation recited in these references that the method must be performed in “a single training session”, nothing is mentioned or defined as to what a “single session” is or how one is to engage in a single session, or what advantages are to be gained therefrom. There is no guidance provided of how to practice a “single session” to reap the benefits of such a supposedly superior ocular conditioning. In short, to date nothing is taught or provided by the prior art or conventional methods of new and more effective ways to enhance ocular conditioning, except to propound what has been done for decades. Additionally, nothing is provided or mentioned in these methods as to apparatus and equipment for actually practicing the supposedly ocular enhancing methods
As shown, there exists a long felt and much sought after need for more effective methods of ocular conditioning, as well as effective equipment to practice these methods to their fullest potential.